


A Small Song in the Dark

by Mithen



Series: Slumbers Deep and Dreams of Gold [10]
Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: Dreams, Friendship/Love, Giant Spiders, M/M, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 20:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Company encounters the spiders of Mirkwood and Thorin's trust in Bilbo is tested again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Small Song in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Departing from the book-canon a bit (because there's no way Peter Jackson is going to cheat Thorin out of slaying spiders!)

"Oh dear," Thorin Oakenshield could hear Bilbo Baggins murmuring over and over. "Oh dear, oh dear."

Thorin feinted with Orcrist, then lunged forward and chopped off a reaching spider's leg. The spider squealed and danced backwards, ichor spraying from the stump, and its companions chittered madly in response, their pale eyes gleaming.

"Oh no," said the hobbit. "Not spiders. No no no."

They were back to back, and the hobbit's shoulderblades didn't fit against his as a comrade's should. Thorin raised his sword again. "Have heart, burglar!" he bellowed. "You faced down Azog the Defiler, and you will blench at a few spiders?"

There was a shrill chitter from behind him, and the hobbit gasped and shrank back against Thorin. "Azog only had two legs!" Bilbo stammered. "Even if you throw in the warg, that's still only six legs!" Thorin could feel him waving his little sword wildly, warding off the insects. "I just really don't like spiders, and--and I feel I must point out there are much more than 'a few' of them!"

He was right, although Thorin was hardly going to admit it. The woods seethed with spiders, their clicking mandibles dripping venom and their bulbous eyes glaring. Thorin had awakened at the sound of a muffled cry and found himself and Bilbo alone remaining. Now his heart sank as he imagined the rest of his company trussed up and poisoned, dying--maybe already dead. With a sudden movement he slashed another spider across the eyes, dodging the gout of sticky fluid. "If we fall back to the river, we can have the water against our back and--"

A sudden sense of _absence_ behind him made him whirl. The hobbit was gone. Thorin stared at the empty space where the burglar had been, fury and disappointment igniting in him. He had _trusted_ \--

 _"Baggins!"_ he yelled at the top of his lungs, lunging wildly at the encroaching spiders. "You coward!"

Then the weight landing between his shoulder blades, knocking him down; a swift sting at the back of the neck, and then suffocating blackness.

**: : :**

And in the blackness, dreams.

He is fleeing Erebor, the sulfur stench of the dragon and the wails of lamentation clinging to him like black webs. His vision blurs as he staggers, gazing up at the hills from which no help will ever come, as rank on rank turns away, fading into the mists.

No help will ever come.

Nausea grips him, and he reels forward, darkness in front of his eyes. The sounds of battle pierce his anguish, and he looks up to realize that he is at the gates of Khazad-dûm, surrounded by his kinsmen, dying. Dying.

Azog is before him, his pale scarred bulk looming, and he lifts aloft a head, blood dripping from the stump of a neck. Horror turns Thorin's limbs to ice as Azog lobs the head in a long, lazy arc that ends with a grotesque thump in front of him. The head rolls over, the face looking up at him, but it is not his grandfather's face.

Thorin looks into the blank eyes of Bilbo Baggins and feels despair and regret seize him. _He betrayed me!_ he tries to cry. _I do not grieve for a false comrade!_ But no words come forth, for there is only a wail of pain locked in his chest, unable to escape. He yearns to collapse to the ground, to give in to the weight of hopelessness, but he cannot, for Azog awaits him.

Azog awaits him.

When he lifts his head again, he can feel the weight of the crown upon it, pressing down. He is in the great plate mail of Erebor, standing before the gates of his kingdom. Behind him he hears the sound of marching feet, dwarvish steel boots, mighty and strong, and then a song breaks forth from a thousand throats: a warsong to the King under the Mountain. In his right hand is a double-bladed axe, and in his left a burnished shield, as he strides forth out of the mountain to battle. Triumph rings in his veins as he prepares to face the armies massed against him, for how can he fail with his people behind him, how can he fall while clad in the armor of his ancestors, how can he despair while holding the weapons hallowed by the dwarvish kings before him?

He looks up to the hill and sees Azog there, and all his triumph burns away in ashes as the pale orc leers at him, gripping the throat of a struggling Bilbo Baggins.

Silence falls across the battlefield, and the triumphant war hymn fades away like smoke.

He turns to the army behind him, but it is gone. No one has followed him on this day of ruin. His armor is gone and he is once more clad only in the leather and fur of his exile. His hands are empty of axe and of shield. They clench in the air before him, impotent. No King under the Mountain, no heir returned in glory. Just a blind and arrogant fool whose paths lead only to ruin and death.

Somehow, across the battlefield, Bilbo's eyes meet his, and there is no fear in them. There is only understanding and sadness.

And faith, like a song that Thorin can almost hear, far away and small in the darkness.

He takes a step forward, then another. The ground is slippery with blood, but he finds himself running, crossing the battlefield with nothing but his bare hands and his bare heart, his steps sure and strangely light.

There! On his right, piercing a fallen orc--he sees Orcrist shining. The hilt fits his hand as he pulls it forth without breaking stride. Then on the left, fallen among the muck and bodies--his old oaken shield, the final piece of his soul. He plucks it from the mud and keeps running toward Azog, toward Bilbo, and he is complete. Whole. At last. Here, at the end.

Azog tosses the hobbit aside with a snarl, and Thorin sees him land in a heap, his face twisting with anguish--not for his own pain, but for something else. Something unimportant.

Behind him he hears Kili and Fili, crying out with loud voices: "Glory to Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King under the Mountain forever!" And his heart is full now almost to breaking, for he is not alone. He has never been.

He leaps--an impossible leap, but nothing now is impossible--and sweeps Orcrist in a great silver arc as Azog lifts his black mace, and the world seems to stand still before they collide.

In that moment, he is more than King under the Mountain. He is at last _himself._ He is Thorin Oakenshield. And he _will_ \--

Thorin awoke from the dream with a start, the black venom in his veins making his heart pound and his limbs twitch wildly. He was hanging upside-down in Mirkwood, his arms bound to his sides, his eyes closed with foul webbing. _No,_ he thought in a panic, struggling, _Not like this, it cannot end like this! Let me die at Azog's hands rather than be eaten by insects and my bones left to moulder forgotten in the darkness of the wood!_ He heard chitinous sounds all around, heard the groaning of other dwarves--his heart leapt for a moment, then fell again, for what did it avail them if they all were captured?--and then heard another sound.

The sound of a small voice singing.

Thorin went still as the familiar voice taunted the spiders in rhyme, moving about in the dark as the spiders hissed and fumed and skittered through the trees. Now and then there would be a horrible screeching sound, and a thrashing as of some great creature's death throes, and then the song would break out again somewhere else, merry and mocking.

After some time, Thorin suddenly heard a voice just above him: "Thorin Oakenshield!" said Bilbo, "I am going to cut you loose--I'm afraid you will have to fall a few feet to the ground, so forgive the bump!"

Thorin braced himself: there was a sawing noise, and then a sharp drop broken by stony ground. He strained against the webs, but they were like iron; after a moment he could hear shallow, rapid breathing nearby, and then a blade slid along his body, parting the webs. He reached up and tore the clinging stuff from his eyes and mouth to see Bilbo's face before him, pale and set but relieved. "They shall regroup soon," said Bilbo, "So let's hurry and get the others down!"

They rescued half of the dwarves before the spiders came back, but by then they could drive them off with axes and curses, and the rest of the company soon followed. Staggering away from the awful nest, they made their way to a clearing where they could lie and retch and groan, the venom racking their bodies. Bilbo did his best to make them comfortable, doling out the last of their water, but there was no food or way to make a fire, and they were all quite wretched indeed.

"I shall take watch, so try to sleep the poison off!" he said a bit crossly. "I'm a burglar, not a physician, and toxins are far outside my range of expertise."

And so with much moaning and misery the dwarves closed their eyes and tried to sleep. Thorin tried to stay awake, but his eyelids seemed to close despite himself. He saw the hobbit in the middle of the ring of sleeping dwarves with his blade drawn, watchful and worried, and the fleeting wisps of his poisoned dream brushed against him, and he shivered. He closed his eyes and tried to remember it, but it faded from his mind even as he pursued it. It had been a bad dream, he recalled, full of loss and ruin.

And yet, somehow, he felt it had ended well.

**: : :**

"You're the first one awake," Bilbo said in a low voice as Thorin sat up, rubbing at his face.

"I only got one dose of venom," said Thorin. "Foul stuff, and gives foul dreams." He frowned, but they were gone like mist. "Let me take over the watch until the others awake, you can get some sleep." He stood--or tried to, but the forest wavered around him and his knees gave out, and he found himself leaning heavily on Bilbo, his breath coming short. "Cursed spiders," he muttered, shaking his head.

"I _told_ you I didn't like them," said Bilbo, and--was that a thread of laughter running under his voice? What kind of person could find a reason to laugh in the endless darkness of Mirkwood, with no hope of escape?

Thorin did not understand this hobbit at all.

Bilbo eased him down into a sitting position, his arm still around him. "We can both keep guard," he said, tactfully not mentioning that if Thorin could barely stand, he would make a poor guard indeed.

The forest was still; in the distance some eerie bird hooted and fell silent again. "I heard you yelling my name," Bilbo said after a while. "When I--when I slipped away from the spiders."

Thorin grunted.

"I understand why you thought I was running away again," Bilbo said. "But I just want you to know that I've taken on a job, and I intend to see it through. I will not abandon you. You dwarves, I mean," he added hastily, as though this were an important clarification.

After a moment, Thorin cleared his throat. "Forgive me," he said. "You have proven yourself, and I should have had faith in you. I will not doubt you again."

Bilbo yawned as though a great weight had been taken off his shoulders. "I'm glad," he said simply.

And so they sat in the gloom and the shadows, leaning on each other and watching over the others. Eventually Bilbo's curly head dropped onto Thorin's shoulder, and he threatened to topple over entirely until Thorin put his arm around him to anchor him.

Thorin kept Orcrist unsheathed across his knees, listening intently to the murmurs and rustlings in the brush, but he was entirely surprised when the trees parted and a troupe of riders moved into the clearing as silently as ghosts. In the dim light he saw their pale faces, their upswept ears, and their nocked arrows glittered in the weak starlight.

Thorin leapt to his feet, crying out "To me, my kinsmen! Sons of Durin, arise! Foes beset us!" He staggered forward on leaden feet as his companions thrashed and struggled to rise, but his knees buckled beneath him and he felt the earth twist and rise up to slap his face. He was hauled back to his feet and fetters thrown around his hands as he growled and cursed, but the elves said not a word.

They began to march their captives through the wood, and Thorin counted as the line of dejected, ill dwarves went by him. Eleven...twelve...thirteen. Only thirteen.

Bilbo Baggins was missing once again.

A spear prodded him in the back, and Thorin threw a scowl at the impassive elfish face and fell into line. He let his shoulders slump and his gaze grow sullen and defeated, but inside he felt hope, like a small song in the dark.

This time, Thorin Oakenshield had no doubt that his burglar would find some way to save them once again.


End file.
